Today's New York Times has two articles that tell the story behind what economists call the Environmental Kuznets Curve. The basic idea behind the EKC is that as countries develop environmental quality first falls, but then improves. Although it makes a lot of intuitive sense, the EKC has been suprisingly difficult to show statistically and papers are still being published that find evidence for and against the principal.
But sometimes anecdotal evidence does a better job than statistics.
The first article talks about recent catastrophic results of the torrential rains in Mumbai (the city that used to be called Bombay). When 30 inches of rain fell in a 24-hour period, the result was 406 deaths in the city alone, 962 across the state. The article points out, however, that the deaths cannot be blamed on mother nature alone. They were brought on by the environmental destruction that has been wrought on the landscape as India has clawed its way up the development ladder:
The shanties of the poor, as well as the trash of the rich, have blocked gutters and creeks. Mangrove swamps, which act as nature's bathtub during the rainy season, have been built over. A river that once allowed storm water to be carried down to the Arabian Sea has since been pinched by the construction of a new road that is to connect a northern suburb to midtown Mumbai. Called Mithi, or Sweet, River, it once spawned oyster beds; now it swims with feces.
The second article tells a story at the other end of the development ladder, in Los Angeles. California. In the 1950s and 60s, the air in California was so polluted that it caused not only long term health problems, but daily inconveniences as sporting events were cancelled due to smog, drivers had to pull off the road with tears in their eyes, and runners choked on the dirty air they were forced to inhale. Although the article points out that there is still room for improvements, there's little doubt that things are dramatically improved.
Is the Environmental Kuznets Curve true for all problems? Probably not. But for many problems, particularly where the impacts on human wellbeing are the most tangible, there's at least some evidence that at first development makes things get worse, but if it persists, they can also get better.
